Just a man and his words

CellSpex – My Fellow Wordbender

Back in the good ol’ days of 2017, I was having some serious “Avatar” withdrawal, but didn’t want to re-watch the series since the more you watch something, the more easily you get bored of it. Instead, I got my fix by watching the reviews made by people on YouTube, and that’s when I came across a channel called CellSpex.

Celly and Legend of Korra

Celly, as she calls herself, had done reviews for Books 3 and 4 for “The Legend of Korra” (LOK). Yet I think it was her energy that drew me in as much as anything else. And it’s an energy that she brings to all of her reviews.

As for LOK, you’ll see the kind of “energeticness” I’m talking about in the first few seconds of the very first video in the Book 3 playlist as she adorably freaks out about (SPOILERS! SKIP TO END OF PARAGRAPH) Eska and Desna coming back, not to mention the best character of the entire franchise — Zuko!

We all have that inner fanboy/girl in us and Celly brings it out by embodying that energy. I know she did for me when it came to LOK.

Celly’s Review Lists

But maybe you’re not an “Avatar” fan, somehow, but still a fan of animation in general. Then look no further, because Celly has all the reviews you could ever want for animated TV and movies. In her “Worst to Best” lists, for example, you’ll always get a nice musical intro, followed by her typically sassy yet brutally honest reviews.

Hell, she actually sang in one. Also, she has a really nice voice, which I didn’t notice until I watched that video.

What I mean by sassy, though, is how she tells you what she feels. Like how she gave “The Emoji Movie” the “The MOSTLY JUSTIFIED HATE MAGNET Award,” or how she gave “Ratchet and Clank” “The Orange Badge of Bland Disinterest.” Now, it’s easy enough to harp on bad movies, such as the emoji one, and while many will do that and go no further, she doesn’t. With “The Emoji Movie,” for example, she says, and I quote:

“…the soulless, redundant motivation of making a film about selling the internet to the generation that knows more about the internet than the people making this; the egomaniacal gaul of claiming that emojis are the epitome of communication; or the dull, formulaic execution that doesn’t produce any genuine laughs or moments of entertainment at all is an astounding feet!”

See? She goes a step further. And while it can be difficult to actually explain why you don’t like a deplorable movie, instead of just calling it crap, criticizing a movie you really like can prove just as daunting. Celly, however, ventures where only the intrepid have before.

Big Hero 6 & How to Train Your Dragon 2

When she talks about the animated movies of 2014, for example, I think she nailed it right on the head with “Big Hero 6.” As she says in the review, there might be a rush to the third act, and you might be able to predict every twist, but it’s still a fantastic movie that works as an emotional story as well as a superhero origin story.

On the emotional side, the hero, who’s name is actually Hiro, has to deal with the death of his brother. On the superhero side, we get to see the team pre-hero before they suit-up, each with their own cool, unique outfits.

Right after that, she goes straight into “How to Train Your Dragon 2.” Damn, 2014 was a good year for animated movies. Anyway, she talks about how even though she likes it — even more than the first — it had its problems; like how the ending doesn’t match the weight of the rest of the movie, or how it feels like it was originally supposed to go in a different direction. So if she thinks these things, then how come she likes it?

Simple.

More than anything else, the individual characters moments. As she says, and I agree, you can feel the relationships and the intimacy between all the characters. Not to mention we get to see the side-characters actually have an impact on the plot.

Conclusion

Of course, that’s all just a couple parts of a couple videos, and she has plenty more. If you like anything animation, and everyone does, then you’ll love CellSpex. So go on over and tell her that I sent you.

If you want to read more of what I think about some of my fellow wordbenders, click here. You can also subscribe by clicking the button on the right. You can comment at the bottom, right above where you’ll find my social media links (facebook,twitter,digg,pocket,path, etc.), places that allow you to follow me as well as share/like this article. If you want, you can even see articles a week before everyone else by following the first link on the bottom to my Patreon account.